CAN A BELIEVER WORSHIP IN PRIVATE? (1)
CAN A BELIEVER WORSHIP IN PRIVATE? (1)
As to your question, Can a believer worship God acceptably in private? there is a great deal more meant in that question than meets the ear. If it is sought to obtain warrant or authority for a person to be in private, worshipping apart, and isolated from other saints, it is simply impossible, and groundless. No believer can separate himself from membership in the body of [p. 266] Christ, and neither can he surrender his place of responsibility and privilege in the house of God, to which he belongs, and in which, as a lively stone, he is built up. Nothing can be more plainly taught in Scripture than that the believer now, sealed by the Spirit, can in no place be separated from, or indifferent to, the body of Christ, or it to him; for “if one member suffer, all the members suffer with it” (1 Corinthians 12: 26). In the greatest retirement, and the most complete isolation, there can be no severance, or disconnection from the unity of the Spirit, though the one thus ostensibly apart may persist in breaking the uniting bond of peace. There can be no such thing now as there was in Job’s time, a pious believer serving God for himself, apart and independently of all others; nay, what he does most secretly offends and inflicts suffering on all; as Achan’s most secret act, only known to himself, entailed judgment on the nation. And so does the most secret act of disrespect of, or disregard to, the Spirit, entail and inflict sorrow on the church now. See the case of Ananias and Sapphira.
Admit that nowhere, and under no circumstances, can a believer now be an independent worshipper, that is, worshipping independently of all saints or the church, then it is also plain enough in Scripture, that each individual may have seasons of the deepest enjoyment and the greatest adoration in the presence of the Lord. “Lord, I believe. And he worshipped him” (John 9: 38). “Whether we be beside ourselves, it is to God” (2 Corinthians 5: 13). These are instances of individual worship.
It is a very interesting subject - the difference between individual and corporate blessings; but the former can never be independent of the latter; and the former only fits us the better for the latter; for the truer we are for the Lord individually, “according to the effectual working in the measure of every part” (Ephesians 4: 16) - not at meetings only, but everywhere, and at all times - the more each helps to the edifying of the body in love.